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$xhtml = array(
	'title' => 'The first of three visits to the courthouse for my change of legal name',
	'body' => <<<END
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2017/05/08.jpg" alt="LANE COUNTY COURTHOU" class="weblog-header-image" width="800" height="480" />
<section id="general">
	<h2>General news</h2>
	<p>
		After my session at the courthouse was complete, I came home and paid my electric bill.
		I told the representative at the utility company I&apos;ll be changing my name soon, and asked if I needed to bring any documentation in to update my account once that&apos;s finalised.
		They claimed I don&apos;t and that they can just sit down with me and update my account when the time comes.
		However, I highly suspect they&apos;ll want to see my new $a[ID] card, which <strong>*is*</strong> a form of documentation.
		We&apos;ll see though.
		I&apos;ll finalise the name change, update the record at the $a[DMV] and renew my $a[ID], and wait for the $a[ID] in the mail.
		While waiting, I&apos;ll try to update my account with the utility company.
	</p>
	<p>
		As I headed out to go to work, I talked to my neighbours again, who asked me about how my court experience worked out.
		One of them asked about the process and fees, as it seems they&apos;re getting a name change too, though a less drastic one.
		Years ago, they named their child after themself, and since then, have been appending &quot;Senior&quot; to their name.
		Someone told them that&apos;s not legal though and they have to go through the court system to get their name changed.
		I don&apos;t know what this person&apos;s talking about though.
		To get documentation <strong>*proving*</strong> you&apos;re so-and-so Senior, yes, you probably need to get your name legally changed.
		However, common law dictated that you can use whatever name you want, and it&apos;ll be your legal name, provided you&apos;re not using that name for fraudulent purposes.
		It&apos;s pretty obvious that appending &quot;Senior&quot; to your name after having named your child after yourself isn&apos;t for fraudulent purposes, but for simple disambiguation.
		Whatever though.
		I explained how there aren&apos;t even standardised forms and you have to find your own.
		For that, you need to pay a bunch of have a lawyer draft them up.
		I also mentioned that I drafted my own forms though and that the court seems to be taking them, and offered to get them a copy of those forms.
		I&apos;ve printed up a copy of all the forms I think I/they need, both the seven I drafted and the two actually provided by the legal system, along with the instructions I&apos;ve been following, also provided by the court.
		I&apos;ll try to get those to them tomorrow.
	</p>
	<p>
		That non-stick frying pan my mother gave me seems to require seasoning before use.
		That means it&apos;s probably porous.
		I&apos;m not really a fan of porous cooking ware; it&apos;s not exactly sanitary.
		I promised I&apos;d try out the pan though, so I stopped at the store and picked up the vegetable oil needed to season it.
		The seasoning process involved cooking the pan in the oven for six hours, so there&apos;s no time tonight, but I&apos;ll probably take care of that tomorrow.
	</p>
	<p>
		My <a href="/a/canary.txt">canary</a> still sings the tune of freedom and transparency.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="law">
	<h2>Legal matters</h2>
	<p>
		I left home about an hour and fifteen minutes before I needed to show up at the courthouse.
		Supposedly, the trip should&apos;ve taken half an hour, but I managed to get lost and had to take an alternate route.
		It took a full hour to get there, which gave me fifteen minutes to change out of my sweaty clothes I biked over in and into a fresh set of more formal attire.
		Part of the building was open, so I was able to change in the restroom, but I still arrived before the courthouse section of the building opened.
		About a dozen others waited outside the courthouse with me.
		We were finally let in, one by one, through the metal detector and security.
		Frustratingly, a line quickly formed in front of the cashier I needed to see, and while there were five cashier windows, only one was open and running.
		I only had forty-five minutes from the time the courthouse opened to make it through the security line, make it through the cashier line, then make my transaction with the cashier before I was supposed to be at the ex parte proceeding, so I was nervous and frustrated to be stuck in a long line.
		The cashier wanted all my forms, not just the ones I needed today, so it&apos;s a good thing I brought them all.
		They verified that I don&apos;t want a middle name, that I hadn&apos;t just left the middle name out of the paperwork.
		I explicitly put my middle name in the &quot;changing from&quot; field though and left it out of the &quot;changing to&quot; just to make sure they didn&apos;t accidentally think I wanted to carry my middle name over from my birth name.
		They were supposed to take my Petition for Change of Name, but they additionally took my <a href="http://www.courts.oregon.gov/Lane/docs/NameChangeAffidavitVer021215.pdf">Affidavit in Support of Petition for Name Change</a>, which my <a href="http://www.courts.oregon.gov/Lane/docs/PROCEDURE%20FOR%20ADULT%20NAME%20CHANGEver03.pdf">instructions</a> stated I needed to show the judge today.
		The cashier stapled all my documents into pairs, then gave back all but the aforementioned affidavit and the form they were actually supposed to take.
		By the time all this had finished, I was already supposed to be at the ex parte proceeding.
		I was late.
		It was beyond my control though, as I arrived early to the courthouse.
	</p>
	<p>
		Just a side note before I continue.
		That Affidavit in Support of Petition for Name Change doubles as an Affidavit in Support of Petition for Sex Change.
		Why is sex even a legal thing?
		I can&apos;t think of a single positive reason for one&apos;s sex to even come in contact with the law.
		It&apos;s discrimination.
	</p>
	<p>
		Anyway, I arrived at the ex parte proceeding to find that ex parte is just another line.
		It didn&apos;t matter that I was late, that just meant I wasn&apos;t first in line.
		I was expecting a twenty-minute something similar to a hearing, though with multiple people being processed one by one.
		I guess it was kind of like that, but we were all in a line waiting, as well.
		Someone helping the judge took a look at my paperwork before allowing me to enter the line, and said that they&apos;d never seen forms like mine, but it should still do the trick.
		Well maybe if the state or county would provide standardised forms, everyone&apos;s forms would look familiar!
		I had to draft up my forms myself, though I used a lot of information from some example forms.
		Most people probably buy their forms from the same few sources, so the courthouse sees those same few sets of forms repeatedly.
		This oligopoly isn&apos;t legally imposed though, so one can always draft their own forms if they can figure out how to do so.
	</p>
	<p>
		When I got to the judge, they verified again that I don&apos;t want a middle name.
		Perfect.
		No one involved so far thinks I want my old middle name transferred to my new name.
		They asked me for my Affidavit in Support of Petition for Name Change, though they called it something else, and at first, I thought the instructions I&apos;d followed had left out a necessary form I needed.
		I figured it out though, asked if it was the Affidavit in Support of Petition for Name Change, and explained the cashier took that.
		They thought that might be it, and showed me a copy of the form I needed.
		Sure enough, that was it.
		They then had me wait in the hall while ex parte finished up.
	</p>
	<p>
		At the end, I and two other people were led back to the cashiers, and this time several windows were open.
		I think all five were, but I was nervous and only remember thinking that I&apos;d wished they&apos;d opened sooner so I wouldn&apos;t be panicking about being late to the ex parte proceeding.
		There, the cashier gave me two copies of the Notice of Change of Name Hearing, and told me to put one of them in the binder around the corner.
		I was expecting the posting area to be a bulletin board, but it&apos;s actually just a very thick binder.
		It seems it <strong>*needs*</strong> to be, too.
		It was about half full of postings; there wouldn&apos;t be room for that many on a bulletin board unless it took up most if not all of a wall.
	</p>
	<p>
		This was a nerve-racking experience just because I had no idea what to expect, but it wasn&apos;t actually so bad.
		Perhaps the worst part was not knowing whether my Affidavit in Support of Petition for Name Change would be accepted.
		That was the only document (besides the <a href="http://www.courts.oregon.gov/OJD/docs/programs/utcr/Form_2.010.7.pdf">Certificate of Document Preparation</a>, which I needed seven of) that was supplied by the court.
		It asked for a telephone number, which is something I don&apos;t have.
		I wrote in that blank that I don&apos;t have telephone service, then last night, added my email address so they&apos;d have a way to reach me.
		But would this be accepted, or would they try to push that I somehow come up with a valid telephone number that reaches me when no such number exists?
		I&apos;ve had non-government businesses do that, so maybe the court would do that as well.
		Thankfully, they did not.
		As for the forms I had to draft myself, I of course left out any mention of telephone numbers.
		That seems to work as well.
		Once my name change is complete, I&apos;ll upload the forms I drafted to this website for anyone to download.
		Until then, I don&apos;t want to cause people to download forms I&apos;m not entirely sure are legally valid.
		Its also worth noting that these are the forms needed for Oregon in the United States.
		In other jurisdictions, you&apos;ll need different forms.
		My hearing will be at 2017-05-23 8:30.
		According to the instructions I&apos;ve been reading, the hearing is required to be at least fifteen days after the ex parte proceedings.
		The scheduled hearing is exactly fifteen days away, so no extra time will be needed.
		Another fear I had was that there wouldn&apos;t be an open slot in the court&apos;s schedule for me for a while.
		I have a little over a week&apos;s worth of wiggle room.
		If much more delay is added to that, I won&apos;t have my name changed in time to avoid renewing my $a[ID] under my birth name.
		There&apos;s no delay though, so as long as my hearing goes well, my name should be fixed on 2017-06-07.
		I likely won&apos;t work that day, as I&apos;ve not been scheduled to work on Wednesdays lately, so I might be able to get my $a[ID] renewed the same day my name change is finalised.
	</p>
	<p>
		I didn&apos;t know how much a name change would cost until yesterday when I looked it up.
		It&apos;ll be \$111 $a[USD], which had to be paid today.
		Had I realised it&apos;d be that much, I would&apos;ve withdrawn large bills on Saturday when I had my documents notarised.
		I have the cash, but it&apos;s all in one-dollar bills.
		That&apos;s kind of mean to make the cashier count that much money.
		I decided I&apos;d try to pay by credit card so they wouldn&apos;t have to count anything, and if they couldn&apos;t take cards, I&apos;d pay with the cash.
		I thought it highly probably they&apos;d take debit cards but not credit cards, and I don&apos;t have that much in my chequing account; it&apos;s all in savings instead.
		Thankfully, they did take credit cards, though the cashier also said they didn&apos;t mind the one-dollar bills when I offhandedly said I was happy they took credit cards as the one-dollar bills were the only other payment method I had at the moment.
		Still, the credit card seemed like the more polite option.
	</p>
	<p>
		On a somewhat unrelated note, I won&apos;t be needing to cancel my Discover card after all.
		Once my name is fixed on my legal documents, I&apos;ll be able to set the name on my main card through Discover to my real name.
		I won&apos;t need their now-defunct authorised user option any more.
	</p>
	<p>
		I never did find the route the directions to the courthouse told me to take.
		I found an easy alternate route though, so I&apos;ll just use that next time I need to get there.
	</p>
</section>
END
);
